How The Porn Industry Can Lift Its Game On Consent
On Friday I did something I should have done a while ago. I created a page on the tour of my adult site BrightDesire.com outlining the ethical rules I follow when shooting porn, along with information about my efforts to show consent and present performers respectfully. These rules were briefly listed on my casting page but I haven’t ever really sat down and thought about what practical things I do to create a safe, consensual, ethical space when I film people having sex. I’ve been evolving these rules since I first started shooting porn in 2009 but this is the first time I’ve actively codified them.
Making this list required me to analyze my methods and to acknowledge I have made mistakes in the past. And it’s also made me think about new things I could be doing for future shoots and better ways of making consent and ethics clear to the audience.
I’ve done this after week spent reading horror stories from the LA porn industry. On the 28th November well-known porn star Stoya tweeted that her ex-partner James Deen had allegedly raped her. In the days that followed, eight other adult performers came forward with their own stories of assault and abuse, on set and off. Several porn companies cut ties with Deen, women’s site The Frisky ended their association with him and he resigned from APAC, the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee, a group created by industry workers to create better working conditions for porn stars.
There have already been plenty of news articles and think pieces about the rape allegations and the overwhelming support for Stoya and other victims via social media. What I want to address are what the disturbing reports of abuse on-set mean for the wider porn industry and what can be done about it.
I have read stories where directors and crew have ignored abuse during filming or actively encouraged it to “get the scene”. I’ve read about crew members celebrating the money saved thanks to an act of assault during filming. I’ve heard of performers gritting their teeth during abuse and doing their best to finish the job because they felt they had no alternative. And I’ve heard about performers being afraid to speak out for fear of never getting work again.
Like any person with an ounce of compassion and empathy, I’m horrified.
As someone who seeks to make feminist, positive porn from a female perspective, I’m always fighting the stigma that goes with being involved in pornography. Normally I’m happy to say I make porn but this week I’ve found myself feeling ashamed of the industry. It doesn’t matter that I’m Australian, independent and have little to do with the LA porn scene, the shocking stories that have emerged this week made us all look bad. And I don’t doubt that many people in the industry (many of whom operate perfectly ethical businesses) have engaged in a collective cringing facepalm about it, especially when anti-porn and anti-sex work activists have seized on this to further their own censorship agendas.
At the same time, this sudden eruption of honesty from within the mainstream porn industry has provided an important opportunity for change. A discussion about ethical practices and informed consent is well overdue, especially within an industry that is largely unregulated and gets by using the labour of contracted workers.
This is the discussion that we’ve been having for years within the feminist porn community. Now it’s time for the wider industry to stand up and be counted, to make an effort to ensure that performer safety and consent is given priority. It’s also time to talk about how to make consent issues visible to pornography fans, partly to educate but also to address the often-held concerns about porn production.
I think this is especially true for any production company that is creating BDSM, kink or rough sex content, simply because — as we’ve seen — the potential for boundaries to be broken is greater.
I’m only a small time indie producer and I don’t claim to be an expert on ethical porn production. This article is really just an expansion of my the navel-gazing that began with the codifying of my own list of rules. I began to ponder how the wider porn industry can lift its game and what follows is the result. Naturally this list is imperfect and only the opinion of one person but I wanted to put it out there as a way to foster further discussion about how to make better, more ethical porn.
1. Pause and analyse production methods.
Producers need to stop and think about how they are doing business and how they are treating performers. They need to think about aspects of their production techniques that may allow abuse to happen. This might include reviewing the attitude of director, crew and performers to the issue of consent and how it operates. It might involve educating people about the issue. It could be a matter of thinking about practical ways to ensure consent is discussed and respected. It could involve considering what type of content is being produced and considering if the nature of the sex or the scene has the potential for a bad outcome. And it could mean removing people who aren’t behaving in a respectful way to performers. If a porn company isn’t taking a good hard look at itself after this week, there is something wrong with it.
2. Listen to performers and be prepared to work with performer groups.
A vital part of working on this issue is to listen to what performers have to say and taking their suggestions seriously. They are the ones on the coalface, they are the ones who deal with the trauma of assault and boundary breaking at work. Performers know what works best for them and have a lot to say about how to improve things. If they have concerns about another performer, their experience should be taken seriously. And if a producer or director hears multiple reports of bad behaviour, it’s up to them to take a stand against it.
APAC is the first group of its kind to represent adult performers and while it may have had James Deen on the board, it’s still a viable and useful service to both performers and producers. Discussions about working conditions need to occur, especially in such a splintered, contractor-based industry. APAC is a good step towards a more informed and aware porn workforce and a more ethical production base. This group have plenty of ideas about how to make porn safer. From a producer’s perspective, informed, consenting porn stars make for better workers.
3. Codify ethical production values and make them public.
Porn companies should explicitly state how they employ people and the conditions under which they will work. This means that any performer who is employed by that company knows what is going to happen before they get on set and that they are working with a company that has made a commitment to performer safety including safe sex and guarantee freedom from harassment, assault and rape.
These values should openly discuss about how consent is negotiated on set, how pay is negotiated, how performers will be treated when they are on set and how they will be depicted in the final product. Safe sex rules need to be clearly addressed and safe words or the ability to call a halt to a scene need to be put in place.
Each company will need to decide what works for them but they must always take into account the fact that there is money involved and that gives them power over their performers. Ethical production means finding a way to even up power structures so performers are able to speak freely about anything that concerns them, without feeling that they will lose money or future work.
This code of practice needs to be made available to the audience as well. Being open about production ethics means a company is more accountable for performer safety.
4. Ensure that any ethical statements are backed up with action.
Plenty of porn companies already have ethics statements and consent practices in place. For example, Kink.com has a form for performers to fill out that lists their preferred sex acts and things on their “no” list. This is only a first step, as it must be backed up with respect for those boundaries and enforcement against those who break the rules. As we’ve seen, that has occasionally not happened at Kink — performers have had their personal boundaries disrespected and injuries — and emotional distress — have occurred. It’s one thing to talk the talk for marketing purposes but it’s another to actually do it.
Having codified ways to be ethical, porn companies need to implement all the practical steps to ensure it actually happens. This may involve written discussions about consent, having pre-scene meetings to plan ahead and then and ensuring those plans are adhered to during a shoot. It means paying attention to the safety and consent of performers throughout a shoot. It means being willing to stop a scene if need be and to listen if there is a problem. It means ensuring that the director knows they are ultimately responsible for keeping performers safe and ensuring that they are wholeheartedly embracing that role.
And here’s the rub: it also means being prepared to lose money on a scene if things don’t go well. It means giving priority to performer safety and consent over profit if need be. This is a big thing for porn companies to do but it is vital if we want the industry to aspire to some kind of respectability. And it should be noted that if ethical procedures are in place, wasted scenes will be far less likely to happen.
5. Encourage feedback and open communication with performers. Collaborate.
Creating safe and consenting work environments in porn is an ongoing process. There are no official rule books in this business and mistakes are made. Getting feedback from performers is vital to knowing where things have gone wrong and working out how to fix them. Non-filmed exit interviews or any kind of post-scene discussion are important and performers should be able to speak freely about negative experiences. Producers must be willing to acknowledge mistakes and learn from them.
I would also add that collaborating with performers during the creation of a porn scene is a great way to ensure that they will be enthusiastically consenting to what happens. When performers are able to actively decide how a scene will go they are more engaged with what is happening and empowered to ensure it happens safely and consensually.
6. Make sure any production finds a way to make the consent of performers explicit.
Ethical production behind the scenes is vital but it is also important to foster a culture and understanding of consent in the audience. Companies should look at ways to make the consent of their performers available to the audience in the end product. This might be a matter of adding dialogue or actions that make consent apparent in the scene itself or not editing out footage that shows performers communicating consent during a scene. Or it could involve filming pre-and post-scene interviews, offering behind-the-scenes footage showing negotiation between performers, or it might be statements or endorsements from the performers.
Some may argue that porn is a fantasy and such things undermine that, especially if it is a rough sex scene where consensual non-consent may be part of the scenario. Nonetheless, information about consent can be provided without ruining the scene. To provide an analogy, the nutritional information on a chocolate bar doesn’t undermine the taste of it. You are giving the consumer information that they can use or ignore as they like. The important thing is they have that choice.
I’ll admit, this list has a feeling of corporate mission statement about it, something that the anti-establishment porn industry will dislike. We’re all about fucking, after all. Nonetheless, it feels like having this discussion is the only way we can move forward and build something positive to help keep things viable. And if we don’t do this, the government may step in and take a hand.
Of course, there are already plenty of companies for whom ethical production is a given and for whom my list is a statement of the obvious. Unfortunately, anti-porn activists would have everyone believe this type of porn doesn’t exist at all and, after this last week, people may be tempted to believe them. What these companies need to do is to be out and proud about their methods and to encourage other porn directors and companies to follow their lead.
And there are also companies out there whose entire genre and business model is about treating women badly. Unfortunately, this content still sells and they’re not about to change what they see as a profitable enterprise. Reviewing their approach to consent is probably not going to happen as it would undermine their entire reason for existence. My hope is that as the porn industry opens up and starts to name and shame bad performers and bad producers, it becomes harder for these people to do business.
Another important part of this process is the porn consumer. If the audience becomes more vocal in their desire to see performers treated well then the industry will respond. And if those consumers vote with their money, you can bet there’ll be a real move toward ethical, consent-driven production.
Any conversation about ethics in porn is bound to be complicated and drawn out. As Nichi Hodgson of the Ethical Porn Partnership has found, getting pornographers to agree on anything is like herding cats. Even so, it’s worth hoping that we can find some common ground and strive to make a better and more ethical pornography. In the wake of this week’s horror, it’s the only way forward.
By Ms. Naughty
Bio: Ms. Naughty is a feminist porn filmmaker and writer. She has been making and curating porn for straight women online since 2000. Her erotic films have screened at several international film festivals including Cinekink and the Berlin Porn Film Festival and she has won several short film awards. She has a chapter detailing her work in The Feminist Porn Book, edited by Tristan Taormino et al. Her writing has also featured in Best Women’s Erotica, edited by Violet Blue and Coming Out Like A Porn Star, edited by Jiz Lee. She has spoken about feminist porn at the 2013 and 2014 Feminist Porn Conferences in Toronto, as well as the Women of the World festival in Brisbane in 2015. Her fiction has featured in several editions of Best Women’s Erotica. She runs Bright Desire, an adult site that features all her films. It won Best Website at the 2015 Feminist Porn Awards.
